The Contract
by Atiaran
Summary: A Fallout 3 fic. Charon and the Vault dweller have a conversation after she has bought his contract. Inspired by something that happened to me in-game. Female Vault dweller, named Samantha; mild spoilers.


**Standard disclaimer:** None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of Bethesda Game Studios. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.

**Author's notes:** This fic was inspired by an incident that happened to me in-game: when I was exploring the Nuka-Cola plant with Charon as a follower, he kept charging up the stairs straight into a nest of Nuka-lurks and getting killed. I reset three times trying to keep him alive, until I finally ended up up ordering him to stay where he was and going to take care of the Nuka-lurks myself. I was struck by the incongruity of the situation—a naïve kid like the Vault dweller being able to take care of the Nuka-lurks while a long-time warrior like Charon kept getting himself killed?—and decided to write a fic exploring it. This ended up being sort of a bonding fic between the Vault kid and Charon—for you Firefly fans out there, I see this as the first step toward what would eventually become a Zoe/Mal-type dynamic.

My version of the Vault kid is female, and I've named her Samantha. I normally don't like names given to nameless PCs in fanfic—I find it alienating—but unfortunately sometimes there's no way around it. I hope that's not too offputting to people. Thanks, as always, to LadyKate who was kindly willing to beta!

* * *

Clouds stretched across the purpling sky, and through the breaks the first stars twinkled. The two travelers had taken shelter within the bare bones of an abandoned house, after Samantha had first checked her Pip-Boy to ensure that there were no enemies around. Left to her own devices, she might just have popped some Jet or Buff-out to enable her to run through the night—it would not have been the first time—but since Charon had come, she did that less and less.

The tall, silent ghoul sat on the opposite side of the small fire from her. She had asked him to start the fire while she tried to scav something to eat, and he had done so with the caution he brought to everything. The fire was laid on bare earth, within a carefully-placed circle of rocks, and positioned in such a way that its light would be shielded from view. She would not have thought to take such care with it. _Well, it's only been three months since I climbed out of the Vault,_ she mused. _I think I've done pretty damn well at learning in that time._ Well enough that Three Dog was calling her the "Hero of the Wastes," anyway. Just the thought of that title made her grimace, especially the way he trumpeted it over the air waves, making sure that everyone who listened to Galaxy News Radio knew it, but she let it pass. _I suppose there are worse things to be called…_

The nice thing about living in the Wastes was that there was no shortage of creatures trying to kill you; Samantha had found several vicious dogs which she had taken down with her shishkebab. _No need to waste ammo on dogs._ Dog meat wasn't her favorite, but it would help them to conserve their precious stores of the much more healthful and nutritious Mirelurk meat. She had also seen and shot a yao guai on the way back, but she reserved yao guai meat for emergencies only; there was something about it that was almost as good as Psycho for strengthening one in combat. Charon had eaten sparingly, as he always did. Samantha wasn't sure if that was a ghoul trait, if perhaps ghouls didn't need as much food as smoothskins, or if it was just him—_I should ask Gob sometime,_ she reminded herself—so Samantha had finished off the dog meat and settled down to repair her weapons. Her combat shotgun had really been taking a beating lately, and as she scrounged through her stash of spare parts, she fretted about the possibility of finding another one. _I should have looked to see if Moira had one the last time I was in Craterside Supply,_ she remonstrated. _I was so excited about the possibility of finally getting the schematics for her Rock-It Launcher that it didn't occur to me….I should have picked up some more shells too. Now there are two of us, we've been running short of ammo. Charon always seems to have enough shells, but he's been using the assault rifle too, and the 5.56 mm rounds are getting low. _She wondered where they could scav some more. She'd been switching to the laser rifle lately, because there were plenty of energy cells for that, but she didn't—

"Mistress."

Charon's raspy, grating voice pulled her out of her reverie. Startled, her head jerked up to look at the ghoul on the opposite side of the fire from her. His flayed red complexion was washed in shades of orange and yellow by the campfire light, making him look even more demonic than usual. It was so rare for him to speak up—she could count on the fingers of one hand all the times he had volunteered anything since she had bought his contract, and still have fingers left over—that she immediately put her shotgun down to give him her full attention.

"You have given me standing orders to speak whenever I perceive that you are in error." There was a very specific reason for that; a week or so ago when traversing the downtown DC ruins, Samantha had rounded a corner and almost stumbled headlong into a supermutant encampment. When Charon had revealed that he had known of the camp, she had rounded on him angrily. _"Why didn't you warn me?"_ she had demanded, only to be answered by a shrug and a calm, _"You did not ask, Mistress."_ Since that time, she had made clear that she expected him to tell her of danger, whether she asked or not.

"Do you have something to say now?" she asked him.

Charon studied the young woman across from him. He had only known her a very short time, and was still trying to learn her ways. She had given him the standing order to correct her if she erred, but he was unsure she actually meant it. Ahzrukhal had given similar orders, but had been most displeased to be corrected. It had taken Charon some time to figure out that that there was another part to that order: speak when he perceived Ahzrukhal was in error—_if and only if_ the matter was trivial and Ahzrukhal would not lose face by correcting his mistake. The unspoken orders had been stronger than the spoken ones, and it had been those that Charon had abided by. He still was not sure if there was a similar codicil to his new mistress's standing orders, but without that knowledge, all he had to go on was what she had initially told him. "Yes, Mistress. I perceive that you are in error now, and so I will speak. If you feel that my speech is inappropriate, you may chastise me as you wish, but you have ordered me to speak and so I will."

The young woman frowned. "Go ahead, Charon," she told him. "I _want_ you to speak your mind."

Ahzrukhal had said the same thing. Charon regarded her a moment longer, attempting to determine if there was another part to that statement—he was not afraid of her chastisement; this new mistress could not be as harsh as Ahzrukhal had been, and Charon had borne Ahzrukhal's punishments stoically and without complaint—but he could not disobey the will of the one who held his contract. At length, he forged ahead. "You are using me incorrectly."

"What?" Samantha stared at the ghoul, trying to figure out what he meant.

"You are not using me to the best of my abilities." Charon leaned forward to stir up the fire, and the light danced across his skull-like face. "Today in the Nuka-Cola plant. When we went up the stairs into the office. You ordered me to stay and wait for you on the stairs while you scouted ahead. I followed your orders, as I must and always will, until you die or pass my contract to another. But those orders were incorrect. It was I who should have gone ahead, or at least accompanied you to protect your back. That is my function."

Samantha was shaking her head before he had finished. "It was too dangerous."

The words slipped out before she meant them to. Samantha cursed inwardly, realizing how it sounded, and searched Charon's face. His decayed features were hard to read, but they twisted into something that might have been a frown. "I do not understand."

Samantha bit her lip. "Look, there were those three Mirelurks up there, or—or Nuka-Lurks or whatever those things were. How could I have brought you into that? I'm your leader, I'm responsible for your safety—I couldn't have exposed you to that kind of danger. It would have been wrong."

That expression deepened. "I see. You judged me incapable of handling that level of threat." His gravelly, grating voice betrayed nothing. Nevertheless, Samantha winced inwardly.

"No, no, no," she hastened to clarify. "It's not that, it's just— Look, I've fought tons of Mirelurks before, cleaned out a couple of spawning holes—to me, they're really no big deal…." She paused. _That came out wrong,_ she thought, watching Charon's unreadable expression. "When I pulled those two Nuka-Lurks off you earlier today—" _That came out wronger. _They had been scouting a corridor when without warning, Charon had pulled out his shotgun and gone haring off around a corner, moving so quickly that Samantha had lost sight of him. She'd heard his shotgun discharge, and then heard him grunting in pain, and had charged around the corner to find that two of the creatures had slammed him into a wall and were smashing him again and again with their hard carapaces, determined to break him to bits. She shuddered at the memory. _If I had gotten there a moment later…_

Charon's face closed as she reminded him. "Your assistance was…unexpected." Charon had not called for help; it had not occurred to him to do so. The arrival of his mistress—charging, heedless of her own safety, into the fight, her shishkebab blazing before her like a flaming sword out of the tales of old, shrilling the unlikely battle cry: "_You leave my friend alone, you big ugly crabs!_"—was something he was not likely to forget any time soon. _She is known as the Hero of the Wastes,_ he had remembered, watching her ruthlessly incinerate the Mirelurks, and for the first time, had realized why.

"Was it unnecessary?" she asked him.

Lying to the holder of his contract was unthinkable. "No." He leaned forward to stir up the fire again.

Samantha sighed. It was hard to read ghouls' expressions to begin with; she could sort of manage to with Gob back at Megaton, but that was after three months and change of practice. "You see?" she tried. "How can I put you into those kinds of situations? I just— The thought of you—of _anyone_ who depends on me—getting hurt because of my orders— I can't stand it."

"You—are afraid." Charon sounded as if he were tasting an entirely new concept. Samantha nodded gratefully.

"Yes."

The ghoul seemed to hesitate. "Mistress…you ordered me to speak my mind. Such fears are unbecoming to you, and they are…insulting…to me." Charon closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples briefly, and Samantha sat up in surprise to see such a human gesture coming from the normally reserved ghoul. "You may chastise me if I spoke out of turn—"

"Stop _saying_ that!" she exploded with such force that Charon drew back. "I'm not going to chastise you for speaking—I can't imagine chastising you at _all!_ Even thinking about it gives me the creeps!"

Charon looked faintly puzzled. "If you do not wish me to say that anymore, then I will not."

"Never mind." Samantha fought back a sudden urge to rub her own temples. "Go on."

"Mistress…I am a fighting man. I have been fighting at the orders of whoever holds my contract for longer than you have been alive. It is what I do; it is who I am. I have been watching you, Mistress. You may chas—" He broke off in midsentence and looked at her. She gestured him to continue. "I see that you fight also, but it is not who you are—or rather, not _all_ of who you are. You are fighting as part of what the one called Three Dog terms 'The Good Fight.' When it is over, you will lay down your weapons. I will not, till I die or am killed or am commanded to by the one who holds my contract. If you will not let me fight…then I must wonder why you bothered to buy my contract at all."

_On a whim, because I needed someone to help carry stuff._ Somehow she didn't think that would go over too well. She considered Charon's words, frowning. There was no reproval in his rasping voice; his words were a simple statement of fact. The thought crossed her mind that that was not only the longest speech he had ever given her since she had bought him out, but that probably that was more words than all his previous utterances put together. He watched her calmly, waiting for answer. At length, she sighed.

"Charon, I'm sorry if I have been making you feel slighted—"

"Apologies are not necessary, Mistress. You may do as you please."

"And will you stop calling me 'Mistress?'" she demanded, feeling her temper starting to go again.

Again, Charon looked puzzled. "What shall I call you instead?"

"How about Samantha?" He looked at her blankly. "Maybe 'friend?'" she tried.

"If you want me to call you friend, then I will call you friend," Charon replied.

"No, I don't want you to call me 'friend' because _I_ want you to, I want you to call me 'friend' because _you_ want to." Samantha stopped to consider whether or not that made any sense. Charon's puzzlement seemed to grow.

" If you wish me to call you 'friend,' then I wish it as well." Charon frowned, as if trying to figure out what he had just said. Samantha groaned and waved one hand.

"Forget what I just said. 'Mistress' is fine. Look, Charon, I'm sorry. It's— I've been on my own for a long time, and I've gotten used to it. I've learned how to deal with things by myself. It's just—it's going to take some time for me to figure out how to work you into my set-up, that's all."

Charon considered this, prodding at the remains of the fire. The movement was smooth, economical, like everything he did; for such a big man, Samantha had noticed right away that he moved with the parsimonious efficiency of a deadly predator. "I see," he said after a moment. "Then you do not actually need me."

Samantha winced. "Charon, that is _not true,_" she said, though the ghoul did not look particularly in need of reassurance. "Hell, just having you along to help _carry_ stuff is a huge bonus all on its own." The ghoul's face flickered, and Samantha hastened to add, "You've already saved my life more times than I can count—having you around to stand watches and guard my back has made things _so_ much easier—and traveling the Wastes is a lot less lonely with you around," she added, giving a small, nervous laugh.

"So my fighting skills _are _of use to you. Then I do not understand why you strive to keep me out of danger."

His voice was flat, declarative. He regarded her calmly from across the fire, with those filmy yellow eyes that perhaps once, long ago, had been blue. His ruined face looked otherworldly, perhaps even frightening in the eerie flickering light. Samantha had learned enough about ghouls since she had crawled out of the Vault to know that despite their unfortunate appearance, ghouls were pretty much people just like everyone else, not ravening monsters. _Hell, Gob is one of the closest friends I've made since reaching the surface, and he looks almost as bad as Charon. Maybe even worse._ Still, at moments like this, she could see how the tales got started. She sighed, feeling a heavy, leaden weight in her chest.

"Charon—" Her eyes closed briefly. She could hear a quiver in her voice. "If you should die— If I should somehow get you killed—"

His sandpaper voice came to her out of the night, solid and unyielding as granite. "Death is not something to be feared, Mistress. It comes to all living things, sooner or later. My very first master always said that death is the ultimate proof of life, for without first having lived it is not possible to die."

"I think that's really warped." She shuddered.

"Nevertheless." Charon shifted on the opposite side of the fire, regarding her with those rheumy, deceptively mild eyes. "I have always known and accepted that my life is in the hands of the one who holds my contract. I am fully prepared to die for you, Mistress, at any time in accordance with your will—"

"Charon, I don't want you to die for me _at all!_"

"Then I shall endeavor not to do so, Mistress." Samantha looked at him, but there was absolutely no trace of levity whatsoever on those rotting features. "Nevertheless, if I die in obedience with your orders, know that no blame will fall to you. My life is yours, Mistress, and it is fitting that you should dispose of it as you will. As a ghoul, I have already lived a longer span of years than those allotted to most."

He fell silent for a moment, but something unspoken hung in the air. At last the ghoul cast around him, then took the blanket from his bedroll and spread it on the ground before him. He took his assault rifle from his side and laid it on the blanket, beginning to disassemble it as a prelude to making repairs. Samantha was suddenly struck by the overwhelming conviction that he had done so simply so that he would have something to fiddle with. Absorbed in his work, his hands moving with the ease of long practice, he ventured, "It is…strange…that there are those who find this life so sweet that they would sorrow to leave it."

Samantha sat up straight, focusing all her attention on him. _That's the first crack in the "quiet fighter" façade of his that I've __**ever**__ seen_—more a function of the way he had said it than of what he had said—_and what a doozy! _ "Do you not?" she asked him, alert.

Charon did not raise his eyes. "Life is life. Death is death. There is little to choose between the two states." He hesitated, then added, "Perhaps especially for a ghoul." Samantha's ears pricked up, but no more was forthcoming except clicks and snaps as Charon efficiently stripped down his rifle.

"When did you…change?" she asked at length.

"Long ago. " Charon still did not look up.

"How long ago?" she prodded.

"If my mistress wishes me to discuss this with her, then I will do so." He continued to work. Samantha waited, but he said no more. _All right, I guess I can take a hint._ She considered trying to push it further—she knew that Charon would discuss it if she ordered him to—but he clearly was not in the mood to talk about it. She didn't feel like dragging it out of him step by step, especially if it was something he didn't want to reveal. Finally she sighed.

"Charon, I'll try," she said softly. "But I want you to do something for me in return."

"Barter is not necessary. You need only command, and if it is within my power, then I will obey."

She let that pass. _Is it my imagination or does he seem slightly relieved to change the subject? _"No more running off. All right?"

Now Charon raised his eyes from his rifle. "I do not understand."

"Yesterday. When you got into trouble with those Nuka-Lurks." Frustration—born of fear—entered her voice. "All of a sudden you just pulled out your shotgun and took off. I lost sight of you almost immediately. I had no idea where you were going, what you were doing, what was going on—all I knew is that you just _disappeared_ around the corner."

"That is part of my function," he told her. "To intercept and neutralize threats before they reach you."

She shook her head. "Not while I hold your contract, it isn't. When you go running off like that—" now she leaned forward, holding his eyes for emphasis "—you make it impossible for me to support you if you need it." The ghoul blinked again and started to say something, but Samantha cut him off. "And more to the point," she added, hoping this argument would reach him, "it is impossible for _you_ to support _me._"

Charon blinked, processing that. "I…have been in error, Mistress," he admitted at length. "The previous holder of my contract, Ahzrukhal—" Samantha remembered him; remembered too how, much to her surprise, Charon's first act upon his contract passing to Samantha had been to pull his gun and shoot his former master. "Ahzrukhal used me as security. He always ordered me to precede him and clear rooms and hallways to make the way safe for him. I assumed you would have the same requirements. I should have asked to know your will instead. You may ch—" He stopped himself as Samantha shook her head. "I will not do so in future," he finished instead, and snapped the final piece of his assault rifle back into place.

"Thanks, Charon. That's all I'm asking."

There was silence for a time. The popping and crackling of the fire filled the night, along with the distant noise of the wind. The burned-out frame of the house was perched on a ridge; around them, the barren, blasted earth with occasional tufts of scrub grass sloped down and down, dotted here and there by the remains of a skeletal tree, to where the river ran below them, so far distant that it made no sound. Off in the distance were the ruins of part of an ancient freeway overpass, and above them stretched the starry sky. _The vault of the stars,_ Samantha thought, looking up through the charred tracery of the roof and remembering a saying she had come across in a small scorched book. _When I lived in the Vault, I would never have guessed there were so many stars…._

The quiet was oppressive. Except for the wind and the fire, there were no other sounds, not even bird calls or the rustles of wild animals—and if there had been, Samantha would have reached for her shotgun, knowing that they were shortly about to be attacked. Even during the day, the emptiness of the Wastes began to wear on her after a while, but at night the sheer vastness of it all—the _scale_ of the ruined land—became truly staggering. She imagined it as a vast region of blackness, with only a few feebly flickering sparks here and there—isolated settlements, Raider encampments, the occasional pinpoint light of a Wasteland wanderer like herself. The immensity of night in the Wastes, as opposed to within the safe and sheltering walls of Megaton, made her feel small and insignificant as nothing else could since leaving the Vault. At first it had been nearly impossible for her to sleep in so much quiet. Sometimes turning her Pip-Boy's radio to GNR or Agatha's station helped, but more often than not the power of Three Dog's recorded broadcasts or Agatha's violin faltered before the huge silence, making her feel even smaller than before. _Better to just pop chems and keep going through the night,_ she thought. Hell, sometimes she even welcomed the inevitable encounters with Raiders—at least they were other humans, even if hostile.

Her eyes found Charon, seated across the fire. He had put away his assault rifle and was now working on his pistol. As taciturn as the ghoul was, and as gruesome in appearance, he was still company…and more or less friendly company at that. He was an ally, a partner against the terrible emptiness. She didn't think she'd realized just how very lonely she'd been—how badly she'd been suffering, wandering the Wastes alone day after day, night after night, only returning to Megaton when necessary to unload, rearm and repair—until he had come. _No wonder so many wasters end up junkies or dead._

"Charon…."

The ghoul turned that flayed face toward her. "Mistress."

"Charon, I—" she fumbled. "I just wanted to say— Look, I know that the only reason you're following me is that I bought your contract," she confessed. The ghoul said nothing, simply continuing to look at her. "I know that you're not with me for any other reason, and that the moment I die or sell your contract to someone else you'll go to them without a look back or a second thought. But I just wanted to say....I'm really, really glad you're here." She paused. "I don't know...what if anything that means to you, but I just wanted to put it out there."

Charon regarded her. "If you are happy, then I am happy, Mistress." He stood up, holstering his repaired pistol. "If you have no objections, Mistress, I will take the first watch, as you asked me to last night."

"No. No objections. Thank you, Charon."

Something flickered in the ghoul's decaying eyes. "Sleep well, Mistress." Samantha bedded down as he turned his back to her, keeping watch over the long, sloping hill toward the river. As she closed her eyes, the last image that followed her into sleep was of Charon's broad back silhouetted against the vast and empty sky.

_Finis._


End file.
